The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire, #1)(13)

She nodded at the fountain. “Did it open its eyes again?”

Tythus shifted uncomfortably. “No. They were open for five days, but haven’t been open since. Gives me the shivers, honestly.”

A figure stood in the fountain, a bowl in her hands from which the water flowed. The palace had been in an uproar when the statue’s eyes had opened a few months ago, sightless. Her father had been about to order it destroyed when the eyes had closed again. Nothing had happened. No trumpets, no rumblings, no sudden appearance of people who had old magics. There were whispers in the streets that this meant the Alanga would return and take back rule of the islands, and that it would happen first at Nephilanu. But even frightening stories lost their bite sun-bright day after sun-bright day. “If they did come back, they’d go to Imperial first,” Phalue said.

Tythus frowned. “It’s bad luck to speak of the Alanga coming back.”

“Don’t tell me you’re that superstitious.”

He only pressed his lips together.

Phalue shook out the leg and sighed, her mind turning back as it always did to Ranami. “I asked her to marry me. Ranami,” she said. She wasn’t sure why she was confessing this to Tythus, except that he had always listened when she’d had a problem.

He sheathed his sword. “Well, I certainly didn’t think you meant the fountain. And?” He read her face. “Ah. She didn’t accept.”

Phalue brushed sweat and hair from her forehead. “I’ve asked before. It’s not the first time. But she keeps telling me she doesn’t want to be a governor’s wife. What am I supposed to do with that? Abdicate? I’m not fond of my father’s policies either, but if she were my wife and I inherited, she could help me shape them.”

Tythus only shrugged. He was one of the palace guards; he wasn’t going to speak ill of her father, no matter how freely she might.

“She hates that he ships all the caro nuts away to Imperial. She hates the way the farmers are treated. She thinks it’s not fair. Then what is she doing with me? I’m the governor’s heir. If she’s truly not interested in improving her station, shouldn’t she be courting someone whose station doesn’t repel her? Am I a joke to her? A passing fancy? I took her to the docks where we first met, had set floating lanterns in the water, and she wanted to talk about my father’s taxes! I should have known she would say no.” Phalue was pacing the length of the courtyard. She stopped, took a few deep breaths.

“Phalue,” Tythus said. “I’ve been married for five years now, and I’ve two children. I’m no governor’s child. I’m no governor. Beyond that and most importantly, I am not Ranami. You should probably ask her.”

“I don’t know how to talk to her,” Phalue said, and hated the edge of a whine in her voice. She’d tried to explain to Ranami that her father was urging her to marry, that she would give Ranami free rein to change things once she was installed as governor, that they’d been together for long enough. She’d even once thrown a fit and had walked away, resolving to leave her and court someone else. But she could no sooner leave Ranami than the world could leave the sun. So she’d crawled back into orbit, begging forgiveness – which Ranami had granted with a lingering hug and a kiss to the cheek. No one could ever claim she was not magnanimous.

“Perhaps,” Tythus said, his head tilted and thick eyebrows raised, “you could try listening?”

“You think I don’t listen,” Phalue said flatly.

Tythus lifted his hands in a half-shrug. “Listening is an art. It’s not so much sometimes in letting the other person speak as in asking them the right questions.”

“What are the right questions?”

“I’m just your sparring partner,” he said lightly. “Remember?”

A door on the second floor opened briefly to the balcony, spilling the sounds of music and murmuring voices into the courtyard. Phalue eyed the palace with distaste. “Still going, is it?”

“Your father likes his parties.” Again, his voice was perfectly neutral. “He might enjoy it if you stopped in.”

Stopped in? It would be like a crow trying to roost among songbirds. Phalue’s mother and father had dissolved their marriage when she’d been young, and though her mother had sent her to live at the palace, she never felt like she quite fit in. Her excesses were not drinking and dancing. She shook her head. “Tythus, I would no sooner stop in than you would. You know that.”

He put a weighty hand on her shoulder. “Talk to Ranami if you want to know her thoughts. I’m no soothsayer. You’re prying at a rock and hoping to find a nut inside.”

Phalue sheathed her sword and then redid the tie in her hair. “We haven’t spoken since last night. I left angry.”

“Was she angry?”

Phalue slammed a hand against one of the teak pillars. “No. Just . . . sad. And that just makes me angrier sometimes.”

“Well, you’ll have to talk to her sooner or later,” Tythus said. “Or just never talk to her again.”

“You’re only two years my senior,” Phalue said, rolling her eyes at him. “I’m not a child.”

“Then go,” Tythus said, waving a gloved hand. “Go be an adult. Go make adult words and sort out your differences. I’d very much like to end on the high note of winning.”